


Thin Ice

by violenteer



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, hehe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 14:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21100838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violenteer/pseuds/violenteer
Summary: His eyes skim over me efficiently. He knows he shouldn’t look, but he’s weak enough to compartmentalize his emotions; he tells himself he doesn’t want me.ORTim starts tailing Jason, breaking into his safehouses in the dead of night. Jason notices.





	Thin Ice

His eyes skim over me efficiently. He knows he shouldn’t look, but he’s weak enough to compartmentalize his emotions; he tells himself he doesn’t want me.

He shouldn’t, but that’s beside the point. Never mind that I’m a piece of shit with his best interests barred from my mind. Never mind that I haven’t given a shit about someone in a long goddamn time. He’s stubborn.

We all are, us Robins. We tell ourselves it’s because we know what’s best, but we don’t. We’re all fighting for control we’ll never really have. He decides, ultimately. His voice, his choice, it’s all final.

Good thing I got off that train. Not getting back on any time soon either. So it perplexes me that the Replacement carries such a torch. He burns bright, too.

I’ve noticed him tailing me four nights out of five this week. First night I thought it was a little joke. Thought it might have been Cass. But Tim is distinct.

He tries to be a hundred different people and in the end his own signature is unmistakable.

Kid’s messy. He doesn’t know when enough’s enough. Didn’t trip my system when he came in to watch me sleep. Didn’t bother me when he laid down next to my prone form.

I watched the shadow of his hands skate up my side. He wants it bad. Worse than he wants to stay in the mansion, maybe.

I hate them all. Sometimes I think I really do. I hate how much they need me, when in reality they don’t need me at all.

The big B likes to think he has me under his thumb. Because I haven’t offed anyone lately it makes me part of the family. I’m making bird calls in the backyard with Finger-stripes all over again.

And then I make a little mistake. I create collateral damage. Daddy doesn’t like it. His shadows descend one by one. I can see how they yearn to hold me back from my edge.

It’s a sickness. Believing they’ve never dealt a killing blow before. Convincing their consciences they’d never fly off that same edge.

Bruce is a coward. He’s a hypocrite. Not that I care, right?

I’m too much of an anti-hero to really give a shit anymore. Except for Tim, I guess.

Because he lays in my bed. I didn’t kick him out. What does that say about me?

I let him stick around. He put his prints all over. He shifted beside me. Made himself comfortable. Stole some of the covers. Ran his fingers through my hair.

I guess I’m lonely. Right? That’s gotta be it. I don’t think I would have let things go on this long before, back when Star City was on my case. Roy kept me on the straight and narrow. We were raking dough in together, keeping the streets cleaner.

Keeping kids safer.

Amusement Mile was almost habitable for a second there.

My friends always leave when things are getting good. It’s like they have a sense for it. Not that I mind, really. I walk alone anyway. Lone wolf. Awoo.

But Tim, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to.

Sometimes I think about responding in kind. His advances aren’t all together deplorable. Some of them are nice, in their own fucked up little ways.

The coldest Robin has warm hands for me. Isn’t that sweet?

It would be so easy to take the attention. I am lonely. That’s true. I’m stone cold, colder than my birdy buddies, but even I’m only human.

We all want to trust something. We all want to get off once in a while.

That’s not where my heart’s at, but I’m painting a picture for you, right? Getting you in my corner. Letting you sympathize, set your own values for my intentions.

Like I said, I’m cold.

But I like holding someone I know could never break me. I like feeling safe. I’m safe on my own, yeah. That’s true.

I don’t always want to be.

It would go like this: I’d ‘wake up’ and find him there next to me. I would act like I was shocked for a second. Maybe two. And then I’d tell him I knew.

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d just say I assumed.

Maybe I’d just lean over and plant one on him. How hot do you think he’d be for it? How eager do you think I could get him before I pulled the plug?

Or I’d keep it going instead. Tim would have to earn it, but I’d let him buy me. He could curate the whole thing. Sell it to me in only the most psychologically rigorous of ways.

It’s a headache thinking about this shit sometimes. Not because I resent how much of an asshole I am, but... yeah. Kind of that.

I should just get some casual thing going on with someone I don’t fucking know. That would soften the blow when I vanish.

If I up and fucked off on Tim, he’d tell Dick. Dick would be upset. Little mother hen that he is, he’d probably blow up.

Doesn’t mean he can change Tim’s mind though.

If he comes over tonight, yeah? If he comes over tonight I might do something. My heart’s racing a little thinking about it.

I’m such a blushing damsel. So demure. I only want the best.

If I could forget myself, Tim would be a good person to be casual with. He’s so inward, you’d never know you upset him by keeping it superficial until one day he just fucking vanished.

So he’s in my bed. His hand is in the air, dreaming of tracing my skin directly. I turn, my movements tired, my eyes sharp.

He’ll see me coming. I’ll drop control of my vitals. Heart rate, exhalation. He’ll hear the change.

I know or I don’t know or I’m not surprised or I can’t believe it.

I’m not surprised.

If I push Tim into the mattress I might kick him out of bed. He’ll nudge his way over. He’ll be smooth.

Or he’ll fumble and I’ll laugh.

If I could settle in my skin we could cuddle. Properly. The whole thing. My hands around his waist. My legs bracketing his own. My lips on his neck, breath prickling the fine, feathering skin.

Maybe I’ll give him a reach-around and kill the possibility for a round two immediately. Maybe I’ll whisper all the reasons I deeply hate him. Maybe he’ll cum when I get to the climax; he’s nothing to me.

He’s not nothing to me. He is me, but so much smarter. So much sadder.

And I’m pretty fucking sad. The hardest working Robin, Tim Drake.

What a joke.

And if he slips through my window, what would that make me? To let him?

He’s legal. I’m not a shit head. He’s legal. Is that all it takes?

If it was like that, I could call Dick. His arms are usually open.

* * *

Tim slips in without making any noise. He tiptoes across the concrete floor of the storage unit I’ve hung my hat on for the night, suit skin-tight on his fine frame.

Tim makes me uneasy. He’s too good, sometimes. It makes me wonder why he ever wanted to do the right thing. Why he didn’t go the other way. Work in white-collar crime. I bet he’d be a good thief, if the Cat’s ever searching for a sidekick.

He leans his way into my bed. Knees first, and then he slides himself slowly down my sheets.

My breathing picks up. He goes still where he’s laying parallel.

"Shit," I hear his tiny voice, then his tiny breath as he blows it out.

"Evening little bird," I murmur.

My eyes are gray-blue. I stare at him coldly, the lock of white hair from the pit dipping its toes into the pool of my lashes.

I smile a little, just for effect.

"What sentences does a b-and-e carry these days, anyway?" I continue.

He looks so white in this light. Ghostly pale with his black and red outfit. Red Robin.

"Am I going to be charged?"

I let him sit inside that question for a few moments. His breathing is controlled; no flaws, no hiccups. He hides the panic. If he’s panicking.

"Are you breaking and entering?"

Tim smiles a little.

"Just checking the security system."

He thinks we have a little thing going on. I could let that continue.

"You tripped it." I tell him.

My voice is harsh. My expression is screwed in the beginnings of anger.

Tim’s expression shifts for a moment. It’s genuine. He looks like he might say something much different than he does, but after realizing what he’s done, Tim schools his features back and nods.

"Noted."

He gathers himself and stands. Halfway across the room in seconds. Like he’d never been next to me at all.

I drag my hand through the warm puddle Tim left in his wake. I sigh. It’s put-upon.

"Tim," I begin.

He trips in the admission that I know his first name. That I’m willing to use it. It’s late. There’s no one else around. If Tim’s the only one that knows I can put my claws away, then that’s fine.

It’s not true anyway.

"I’m sorry," he tells me. "I didn’t know you... knew,"

He blinks and it seems owlish. So much attention. So much passion. And the precision behind it....

"Stick around if you want."

It’s an open-ended statement. It’s bait. He looks unsure, so I turn onto my stomach and clutch my pillow and wait.

The bed dips noticeably with his weight.

Tim lies next to me like he’s being lowered into his early grave.

I get this idea; I don’t know where I get it from. I just get it. I want to try it out.

My hand is on the back of his neck. I gently guide him onto his stomach, and now I’m on my side.

He breathes out evenly so I press on. My leg is hooked over one of his, left in the space between.

I laugh, the feeling of it warm and light on Tim’s sensitive skin. Like I wanted it to be. In some scenario where I play him. In some sociopathic fantasy where I don’t care.

I do care, though. I like Tim.

I won’t let even the moon know, but the shadows she throws can infer. If they want. They can read into what I show them. When I lay my body down on his.

And I kiss that place below his ear. And tell him to settle down, little bird.

His cage of a chest deflates. So much shimmering shock.

"Tell me if it’s not good." Is all I can think to say.

I fall asleep next to you. My hands are on your skin, my arms wrapped around you. I want you just as bad.

I won’t tell you that. I’ll never tell you that.

You help me to sleep through the night. All I want is a security blanket.

"It’s not good," you whisper long after I’ve konked out.

But you don’t mean it like that.

You mean it like I mean it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated :~)


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